In 1870, three years after Canada was made a nation by the British North America Act, the fledgling country ranked as the second largest in the world. This ranking was achieved largely through the 1870 cession to Canada by Britain of lands formerly belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company. Covetous eyes to the south were being cast on that huge expanse of empty land just north of the border; the owners of those eyes looked on that land as a fruit to be picked. But Canada was having none of it: It was already planning for the construction of a transcontinental railway to tie the country together.
Canada was barely four years old, had a population of 3.5-million and was already set to spend untold millions over a period of perhaps more than a decade, at a time when a man's wages were a dollar a day. Under the circumstances, one could have been excused for entertaining the thought that the idea might be reckless. There were men and women of vision, though, who thought not only that it could be done but that it had to be done to ensure the survival of their country.
The Americans were against the building of a Canadian transcontinental railway. They pointed out that there already was such a railway in the U.S. and that it would be a lot easier if north-south branches from that railway were built to the areas in Canada that needed servicing. The Americans visualized a northern plum falling into their hands. But Canada was not seduced by these offers, and the last spike in the transcontinental CPR route was driven on Nov. 7, 1885.
Today, Canada faces another threat to its sovereignty from below the border. We again need men and women of vision to counter that threat. No doubt, there will be those who think the actions and money required constitute a reckless venture. There will be pressure from the U.S., with Americans trying to seduce us into thinking their way. I am speaking, of course, of American ships, surface and underwater, violating Canadian Arctic waters by sailing through them with impunity and without asking permission.
The seduction has already started. "We don't recognize Canada's claims to those waters," U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins said last month. "Most other countries do not recognize their claims." And he dismissed the issue as "a problem that doesn't exist," questioning why "there needs to be such a military buildup" in our Arctic.
Canada's claim to sovereignty in our Arctic waters is soundly based, and we do, indeed, have a problem with the intrusion of U.S. ships in our waters.
Norway has a deeply indented coastline with long, narrow fiords penetrating deeply into the interior of the country. In 1935, the Norwegian government took steps to prevent foreign ships from penetrating into the indentations of its coastline north of the 66th degree of latitude. The Norwegians did this by coming up with the idea of what are called "straight baselines" to define their coast. In other words, instead of defining their coastline by following every large or small indentation, they drew straight lines from headland to headland, across the mouths of indentations and fiords, and declared that, for purposes of sovereignty, those straight baselines would define their coastline. This initiative was meant to prevent foreign ships from entering the fiords and indentations without permission.
